sovereign state
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The concept of sovereignty is discussed in Hobbesian terms. For Hobbes, "the sovereign" is an office rather than a person, and can be characterized by what we have come to associate with executive power and executive authority. Hobbes' theories of laws are also addressed and the distinction he makes between "just laws" and "good laws." The lecture ends with a discussion of Hobbes' ideas in the context of the modern state.
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This is an introduction to the political views of Thomas Hobbes, which are often deemed paradoxical. On the one hand, Hobbes is a stern defender of political absolutism. The Hobbesian doctrine of sovereignty dictates complete monopoly of power within a given territory and over all institutions of civilian or ecclesiastical authority. On the other hand, Hobbes insists on the fundamental equality of human beings. He maintains that the state ...more
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Hobbes' most famous metaphor, that of "the state of nature," is explained. It can be understood as the condition of human life in the absence of authority or anyone to impose rules, laws, and order. The concept of the individual is also discussed on Hobbesian terms, according to which the fundamental characteristics of the human beings are the capacity to exercise will and the ability to choose. Hobbes, as a moralist, concludes that the la...more
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Anarchists, unlike syndicalists and other leftists, seek to destroy the state rather than to capture state power for themselves. Emile Henry and other late nineteenth-century radicals inaugurated the modern practice of terrorism in their individualism and their indiscriminate choice of civilian targets. Despite the terrifying consequences of individual acts of terrorism, these pale in comparison to the consequences of state terrorism.
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The final Enlightenment tradition left to be explored in this course is social contract theory, for which we must return to Locke and somehow secularize his views and reconcile them with the refutation of natural rights. Modern social contract theorists replace natural rights with Kant's categorical imperatives, and accept the Aristotelian notion that there is no such thing as pre-political man. They approach the social contract as a hypot...more
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The bank gets bailed out by an equity infusion from a sovereign wealth fund.
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Prroof that S (or entropy) is a valid state variable.
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Prof. Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, discusses the role of state actors in globalization and the relationship between religion and national interest.
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State-action Rewards, Finite Horizon MDPs, The Concept of Dynamical Systems, Examples of Dynamical Models, Linear Quadratic Regulation (LQR), Linearizing a Non-Linear Model, Computing Rewards, Riccati Equation
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Professor Shapiro dives more deeply into Robert Nozick's theory of the minimal, or night watchman, state. This formulation is not redistributive, nor does it consider rights as goals, but rather as side-constraints on what we can do. In other words, Nozick's is a deontological, not teleological, approach. However, the Achilles' heel of this formulation is the incorporation of independents, based on a system of compensation. Some people wil...more
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Socialism in the nineteenth century can be divided into two different strains of thought: reformist and revolutionary. While reformist socialists believed in changing the State through legal activity, such as voting, revolutionary socialists viewed such measures as ineffective and perhaps even complicit in maintaining the status quo. Along the spectrum of leftwing political thought, syndicalists and anarchists shared the conviction that th...more
